Recently, I read a news story that ranted about the surging revival of compact point-and-shoot cameras. In fact, one went viral on TikTok, and now sells on the used market nearly twice what the retail price is for a new one. Scarcity of new stock skyrockets the prices in high demand.
The question in my mind is this. Is the new camera worth all the hype?
Last summer, we took a road trip across the country to California. I carried cameras to ensure I caught the experience the way I wanted to, and often with providing myself some cool 4K desktops for my 30" 4K computer display.
The camera I favored on the west coast was a compact point-and-shoot 21 megapixel camera, which has an astounding zoom range from 24mm-360mm. No other compact camera has such an outlandish optical zoom range. Nevertheless, I want reach, and this was a way I could gain that through an optical zoom (digital zoom isn't all that––optics are better).
After looking through the photos from the west coast trip, I wasn't overly impressed by the quality of the camera's lens. Edges in images were a little "soft". Again, it's a rather ambitious camera, and it's reach is why customers seek it out. Still, not bad.
In late September, we took a trip to New England (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, etc.) to see an photograph the fall colors, along with enjoying many other aspects of early autumn in the Northeast, U.S. I wanted to try an experiment. Rather than grab my point-and-shoot I relied on for the west coast trip, this time I reached for an old Canon 50D (16 megapixels), with a couple of L series (very high-end) lenses I've had for more than a decade. It's bulkier, no doubt, but I was less encumbered by it's heft on this trip.
Now, you'd think that the difference of an extra 5 megapixels would be the key factor in which camera could resolve each shot better. I can assure you, this was simply not the case! In fact, I can say without a doubt, if the compact camera had a 40 megapixel sensor, it wouldn't do anything but make the image files larger. It wouldn't improve the image. The older 50D camera in fact, made better images with far more resolution and clarity, even with a 25% smaller (and older) sensor. If you compare these two landscape images closely (click on them), you can see subtle details in the photo below better than the one above. Also, the photo below is only 75% the size of the first image.
And this wasn't because of the number of megapixels in each sensor. It was due to the quality of the camera itself.
Audio sampling rates are often argued over endlessly (and needlessly) in audiophile communities, and in the mastering/mixing industry as to whether higher sampling rates are better. Why do we feel the need to render mixes and masters at 192kHz, when 48kHz might be quite suitable, and perhaps even sound better?
There's a theory which exists that proclaims anything over 60kHz sampling rates offers no discernible benefit when it comes to digital-to-analog conversion. Ask Dan Lavry. To compound this, when it comes to converters the D/A chips themselves, while they can be amazing, can also be ruined by poorly deployed surrounding electronic architecture. In the view of Paul McGowan of PS Audio, the output stage of the converter has amplifiers, which are probably the most impactful of quality.
What's the point of all this?
The quality of the DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) makes a far more discernible difference in quality of sound than does the sampling rate. Yes, if you have a source audio that's mastered at 44.1kHz, and another at 192kHz, they can both sound great, but the one more pleasing to the ears might be the 44.1kHz source should it be converted through a truly musical and revealing converter, while the 192kHz source might sound "meh" through a cheap-o inexpensive converter.
Why even bring this up?
I often render my masters at 44.1kHz for my clients to go to streaming platforms. And they sound amazing! Not a single client ever thought that getting a 192kHz file was ever going to make things better. I will still render 24-bit, 48 or 96kHz masters, if the client wants to release their music for Qobuz audiophile listeners, for example, or to future-proof the music, but when it's all said and done, the master itself is what matters most. If it sounds great at a lower sampling rate, then it's fine, because more often than not, listeners will have lesser D/A converter stages depending on their audio devices, and therefore, probably don't need or ask for higher sampling rates. Those that do have spent thousands on their converters and probably far more on their playback system. But that's a very small %.
There's no serious argument to make here. I just wanted to say, we've finally reached that point where quality over quantity has become the new norm. We can rest in the reality that newer isn't always better, or more isn't always better. Higher sampling rates can sometimes be esoteric (or even eccentric). It's the music that counts.
Corollary:
An audiophile might argue that the higher sampling rates are nothing to joke about. And to be fair, if a conversion process is built specifically for 768kHz, for example, maybe it can be better, but would you really hear it? Most (including audiophiles) don't fully appreciate the sampling rate concepts and how higher sampling rates, especially beyond 96kHz have little to no impact on their enjoyment. After all, super-high sampling rates can only allow higher frequencies to be heard without filtering them out. Are we birds?
The truth is, the content / music is the element enjoyment, not the frequencies well beyond human hearing. Wait. Can't vinyl or other means produce 30kHz sound and isn't heard, but detected by the ears and makes the music subconsciously more pleasant than CD? Maybe. But that's why 60kHz (twice the highest frequency to hear) is probably the very top of the limit of where sampling rates offer improvements in sound quality. So, 96kHz is quite good enough! Enjoy music.
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